


In the Hanging Tree

by Pandalandalopalis



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Bellarke, F/M, Spoilers for Season 3, includes a snap-shot of post 3x05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-24
Updated: 2016-02-24
Packaged: 2018-05-22 22:47:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6096424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pandalandalopalis/pseuds/Pandalandalopalis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snapshots of Bellamy and Clarke's relationship as it develops. Based off the song "The Hanging Tree" from the Hunger Games.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Hanging Tree

**Are you, are you**

**Coming to the tree?**

**They strung up a man**

**They say who murdered three.**

Nothing as chaotic had happened in their camp before as the hanging of John Murphy. Clarke didn't want this. She was so consumed by her grief in Wells's death that she proclaimed her accusation like a bullet to the teenage delinquent she hated the most without a second thought. She wanted justice for her best friend. She wanted retribution. But she didn't want this.

The phrase "mob mentality" flashed through her head for a moment as suddenly the crowd turned on Murphy, beating him and dragging him to the rope they had tied to a tree. They were going to hang him. They were going to hang him for the death of Wells Jaha.

When the delinquents called for Bellamy to do it, to hang Murphy, Clarke begged him not to, but he refused. He had told her not to do it. He had told her not to accuse Murphy, to let everyone believe that a Grounder had killed Wells, but she didn't listen. Now look where it got her.

"This is on you, Princess. You should've kept your mouth shut."

Clarke hated no one more in this moment than Bellamy Blake, the boy who infuriated her to no end, the boy who shouted "Whatever the hell we want!" to the sky and acted like there were no consequences in the new world they had discovered. But as much as she hated him, with his cocky demeanor and patronizing nickname, she never believed that the Rebel King could go as far as hang someone for their crimes. She never believed he could be like _them_ , like the Ark, floating people because it was more convenient than putting them in jail.

Looking back, Clarke felt like this was a turning point in their relationship. Things could have been very different had Charlotte not spoken up at that moment to stop Bellamy from hanging Murphy. But with the real murderer speaking up to confess what she had done, tensions cleared for a single moment, and suddenly Clarke and Bellamy were on the same side again.

But when Charlotte jumped off of the cliff and Bellamy darted to Murphy, ready to kill him, Clarke saw something in his eyes she hadn't before. He was tired, like her. The young girl he had taken under his wing misunderstood his advice and killed someone, and then ended up killing herself. He was trying to make things right in the only way he knew how, with more chaos. But she could see it, she knew that he knew that it wasn't working. The way of life that he had advertised when they first landed on the ground wasn't everything everyone hoped for.

"If we're gonna survive down here, we can't just live by whatever the hell we want. We need rules."

"And who makes those rules, huh? You?"

"For now, we make the rules. Okay?"

This day was the turning point in their relationship. The day that they transitioned from at each other's throats to co-leaders.

* * *

 

**Are you, are you**

**Coming to the tree?**

**Where dead man called out**

**For his love to flee.**

Part of Clarke didn't know why she had asked Bellamy to come with her to the supply depot. She claimed she didn't want to be around anyone she liked. It was partially true. Despite them being co-leaders, warming up to Bellamy Blake wasn't exactly the easiest thing to do, especially when his favourite pastime was disagreeing with her.

But going together to that supply depot had an almost therapeutic effect between the two of them. Bellamy even found himself at one point physically closer to Clarke than he had ever been before. Hand on the small of her back, helping her aim and shoot, the contact felt foreign and uncomfortable. She didn't seem to notice, but he removed himself from the situation as soon he made the realization.

"Keep practicing. I need some air."

He was going to leave. Bellamy was going to leave because the Ark was going to come down soon and he knew they would either kill him or lock him up. This is what he explained to Clarke when she saw the extra rations he had taken from camp, and the way he talked, like he wasn't going to be there later.

When Bellamy went outside, Clarke felt the strangest sense of . . . She didn't know how to describe it. She didn't want him to leave. Despite everything, despite her doubts and hating him as her co-leader, despite the fact that he _shot the Chancellor_ , she wanted him to stay. He balanced her out. She made the rules, but the kids listened to him. They were a team.

Neither Clarke nor Bellamy remembered much of the next bit. Once they began hallucinating because of the jobi nuts they ate, things became fuzzy and out of focus. Nothing was real. It wasn't until Clarke was knocked out and woke up in the supply depot, scrambling out to see Dax pointing a gun at Bellamy, did things begin to sharpen and clear up. She quickly grabbed a rifle and pointed it at him. She shot once, but the bullet was a dud. Hiding behind the tree just in time, Dax shot at Clarke and missed.

The hallucinations Bellamy saw earlier, Jaha and the 320 people sacrificed in the culling, were still fresh in his mind, clouding his judgement. It wasn't until he saw Dax going for Clarke, trying to kill her, that Bellamy snapped out of it. He tackled Dax to the ground, getting into a fist fight with him as they both struggled for the upper hand.

Dax pressed the gun to Bellamy's throat, and Clarke rushed to pull the delinquent off of him. He thrusted the end of the rifle into her stomach, knocking her off balance and giving Bellamy the distraction he needed to kill Dax with the discarded bullet on the ground, lodging it into his neck.

As Clarke and Bellamy sat, backs up against the tree, she felt something shift between them. She suddenly saw Bellamy open and raw next to her as he broke down and told her he's a monster. Clarke thought back to when he was going to hang Murphy, knowing that she had thought the same thing at that moment that he confessed to her now. But now she could see through his facade, see his guilt and his regret. See his sadness. See _him_.

"You saved my life today. And you may be a total ass half the time, but . . . I need you. We all need you. None of us would have survived this place if it wasn't for you. You want forgiveness, fine I'll give it to you, you're forgiven, okay?"

Clarke convinced him to stay. When Bellamy looks back on it, he knew that he would have left if it hadn't been for her. He would have left Octavia and would have regretted it for the rest of his life. But he stayed because Clarke asked him to. He stayed because Clarke convinced him that he wasn't a monster.

The two of them had never been closer as co-leaders before than they were after that.

* * *

 

**Are you, are you**

**Coming to the tree?**

**Where I told you to run**

**So we'd both be free.**

Seeing her co-leader being taken down by a Grounder affected Clarke more than she thought it would. Throughout all the commotion of trying to get everyone into the dropship, and of all the Grounders running everywhere, it didn't cease to run through her mind that this was it.

Bellamy was going to die. If the Grounder didn't kill him, the fire from the dropship would.

When the doors finally closed, she hated herself for it. She hated herself for not doing a better job in convincing everyone to run. She hated herself for letting Bellamy convince everyone to stand their ground and fight. (She hated herself for being convinced.)

Finn and Bellamy were dead. She loved Finn, but her and Bellamy had a different sort of relationship that she ached for in a way she couldn't explain. He knew the burdens of being a leader. He recognized when things became too much, and he let her lean on him. He made things easier for her, in his own Bellamy-ish type way. He understood her, the way she understood him. Clarke knew he would leave a hole that no one could fill, not the way he did.

In the containment room of Mount Weather, when Clarke had nothing to do but sit and think, she thought about what it would have been like if they had ran like she had suggested. She thought about the long trek to the ocean. She found herself imagining Bellamy yelling at a delinquent not to go too far ahead and to keep in sight of him and Clarke. It brought a smile to her face. She imagined them building a new camp together, having a screaming match at each other at least once a week, but eventually getting it finished.

She missed sitting by the fire at night and looking at the stars. Once, Bellamy had pointed to a constellation and told her the story behind it. She fell asleep to his voice and woke up with a blanket tucked around her. She wondered if he would have told her more tales about the stars if they had gone to the ocean.

Clarke missed the outside world. She missed her mother. She missed her father. She missed Finn, she missed the delinquents.

She missed Bellamy.

* * *

 

**Are you, are you**

**Coming to the tree?**

**They strung up a man**

**They say who murdered three.**

Killing the boy she had loved was a more painful experience than Clarke had ever felt before. It was worse than finding out that she and ninety-nine others were to be sent down to Earth. It was worse than watching Charlotte jump off a cliff to her death. It was worse than thinking that Finn and Bellamy were dead. It was worse because she was responsible for Finn's death this time. It was worse because he smiled at her before she did it. It was worse because she could hear Raven's screams even from where she stood at the bottom of the hill.

She knew she would be in trouble for what she had done. But she couldn't have let Finn suffer, even if he had killed a village just to get to her. Maybe she didn't love him the way he loved her anymore. But she had loved him once. He was her responsibility.

In a way, Bellamy knew what Clarke was going to do before she did it. She gave him this look before she left to go down there. He knew her, and he knew what kind of person she was. He remembered watching her stick a knife in Atom's neck so he wouldn't have to suffer.

Bellamy watched Clarke walk back to camp after killing Finn with a defiant look in her eye. She looked powerful, the way she had gone against the Grounders and their Commander. But she also looked defeated, like she didn't care what happened anymore. Bellamy might not have gotten along with Spacewalker much, and he didn't exactly see what Clarke saw in him, but he knew that he was important to her, and that he didn't deserve what the Grounders were going to do to him.

When all was said and done, Clarke scrubbed the blood from her hands so hard the flesh turned red and angry. But no matter how hard she scrubbed, she couldn't wash the blood from her hands. Not really. Not ever.

Clarke jumped when olive-skinned hands covered her own, stopping her furious movements and gently dipping her hands into the bucket of water. She looked up at Bellamy as he soaked a cloth and used delicate strokes to clean the hands that she had already rubbed raw. He refrained from saying anything as the tears poured from Clarke's eyes. They sat in the quiet, the only sound of water dripping as he washed her hands. He finally spoke when he gingerly pressed her hands dry with another cloth.

"I'll take care of things, Clarke. Don't worry."

* * *

 

**Are you, are you**

**Coming to the tree?**

**Where I told you to run**

**So we'd both be free.**

Leaving camp was the hardest decision and the hardest thing that Clarke had ever done. But she knew she had to go. She had to leave. The things she had done were unforgivable. She needed to run.

"Look, if you need forgiveness, I'll give that to you. You're forgiven."

Her own words were echoed back to her as Bellamy pleaded with her to stay. But this wasn't like then. She wasn't leaving because she thought she might be punished for what she had done. Clarke knew that if Bellamy had talked long enough, if he had pressed long enough, he could have convinced her to stay. Bellamy knew it, too. But he didn't. He knew she had to go, as much as he didn't want her to leave.

When Clarke put her arms around Bellamy, she felt a sense of relief, and simultaneously an unbelievable amount of pain. She was reminded of the first time that they had hugged, when she knew he was safe and alive. She had hugged him tighter than she could have ever believed she could hug Bellamy Blake. When Clarke kissed his cheek in that moment, it was almost like a shock to her system. Part of her didn't know what she was going to do without him.

Part of her wanted him to go with her.

But Clarke knew that wasn't an option. "I bear it so they don't have to." She couldn't let him feel the guilt of Mount Weather. That was something that she needed to carry by herself.

"May we meet again."

The words haunted Bellamy as he watched Clarke walk away and eventually disappear into the forest. He knew it would be different without her. They had been a team for so long, had been together, side-by-side, for so long. Things would change.

Bellamy knew it was hard for Clarke to make the decision to go, but as the days, the weeks, the _months_ dragged on, he became bitter. He started to wonder how it was so easy that she could just leave him. Leave them.

He missed Clarke.

* * *

 

**Are you, are you**

**Coming to the tree?**

**Where dead man called out**

**For his love to flee.**

He came up there to save her. So imagine Bellamy's surprise when Clarke told him she had to stay.

"It's not safe here."

Mount Weather had just been blown up. Raven let the entire room know as she sobbed through the radio. The only thing Bellamy could think about was that it was a _Grounder_ that had set off the self-destruct in Mount Weather and killed Gina. Ice Nation, Tree People, it was all the same to him in that moment. He couldn't let Clarke die, too, and therefore he couldn't let her stay in a room _full_ of Grounders.

"Clarke will be safe here under my protection."

Bellamy wanted to kill Lexa, for that comment alone. With all the things she had done and she thought that Bellamy could trust her to protect Clarke? After she had left them all for dead? No. He couldn't do that. He couldn't leave Clarke here with the Commander. With _them_.

"I have to stay."

The words felt like daggers and suddenly Bellamy felt bitter again. The acid taste she had left in his mouth from months of her being absent had gone away, when he had finally found Clarke, out of pure relief that she was alive. The drive to find her and to keep her safe kept away the angry thoughts and harsh words. But seeing her in front of him, with Lexa standing behind her, telling him to go without her just brought back all the hurt.

"She left us to die on that mountain. She will always put her people first. You should come home to yours."

"I'm sorry."

After three months and a day of looking for her, Bellamy Blake still went home without Clarke Griffin.

* * *

 

**Strange things did happen here**

**No stranger would it be**

**If we met at midnight**

**In the hanging tree.**

Clarke was the last person Bellamy expected to see as he walked into the next room at Arcadia. Octavia slipped out behind him, leaving him alone with the girl he had seen more in the past few days than in the past few months. He listened to her as she tried to convince him that the war was over, that everything was alright now that the Ice Queen was dead.

Bellamy didn't believe her. Everything was _not_ alright. He knew it. Pike knew it. He didn't get why she didn't see it. But every mention of Lexa had him convinced that the Commander had poisoned her mind.

"Bellamy . . . I need you, and we don't have much time."

"You need me?"

"Yes. I do. I need the guy that wouldn't let me pull that lever in Mount Weather by myself."

"You left me! You left everyone!"

They say the truth hurts, and that couldn't be more of a fact than it was as Clarke stood, Bellamy yelling at her. She could see the tears filling his eyes and it stung the corners of her own. She didn't want to fight him, God, she didn't. She didn't want to go to war with him either. But Clarke never considered the full repercussions of her leaving until now. It wasn't as if she didn't realize that leaving would hurt people, of course she knew. But hearing Bellamy bring it up right now in the way that he did made her see the kind of pain that she caused him.

"Bellamy . . ."

"Enough, Clarke! You are not in charge here, and that's a good thing because people die when you're in charge."

Clarke didn't expect Bellamy to say something like that. In fact, she _never_ expected him to say something like that. He was her co-leader, and she was his. They worked together, on a team. She never considered what would happen if they weren't.

"You were willing to drop a bomb on my sister! Then you made a deal with Lexa, who left us in Mount Weather to die and forced us to kill everyone who helped us, people who trusted me!"

Clarke sat down and let the full force of Bellamy's words come over her. He was right. Dammit, he was right. He was right and she hated herself for it.

"I . . . I'm sorry. I'm sorry for leaving. I knew I could because they had you."

In that moment Bellamy wanted nothing more than to tell her how much they needed her too, how much _he_ needed her. He wanted to hug her and tell her to stay. But things were different now. They were at war. And the sooner he could accept that, the sooner Bellamy could do what he had to.

The look of betrayal in Clarke's eyes as he snapped on the pair of handcuffs was one he never thought would be directed towards him.

* * *

 

**Are you, are you**

**Coming to the tree?**

**Wear a necklace of rope**

**Side by side with me.**

Bellamy was surprised by the screams he heard outside as he walked down the hall. He changed his pace to a run, and when he passed Miller he ran alongside him.

"What's going on out there? Don't tell me the Grounder got free."

Miller looked uncomfortable as he asked the question. Bellamy had talked to Pike that morning, who had told them they were planning on kidnapping a Grounder as a warning not to retaliate for the three hundred they had killed just two weeks before. Some people had thought it was strange that the Grounders hadn't attacked by now, but Pike reassured them that it was war tactics, the longer the wait the worse the attack, and therefore they needed some leverage to stay in the game. Miller stood in front of Bellamy and stopped him before he could walk out the door.

"Pike told you it was a Grounder?"

Bellamy all of the sudden got this awful feeling from the way that Miller was looking at him. It was the same look that he gave him when he had to break it to him that Octavia had went missing, once upon a time back at the camp. Bellamy pushed past Miller and rushed out the door, where the midnight sky twinkled its stars down upon him. He ran to the clearing where a huge crowd was formed just outside the gates, around the largest tree outside the border.

As he got closer, Bellamy could see that the yelling and screaming belonged to Abby Griffin, who was being restrained by two guards. He quickly made his way over to the crowd and to Abby.

"What's going on?"

It was then that he saw her. Standing on a box in the middle of the crowd of people, there was blood crusted in her blonde hair. And a rope around her neck.

Clarke refused to let these people break her, to let Pike break her. She spat in his face when he put the noose over her head. But when Bellamy broke through the crowd, her facade cracked. Her voice broke when she called his name.

Bellamy stalked over to Pike, fury in his chest and fire in his eyes. He wanted to punch the man responsible for this. Worse, he wanted to _kill_ the man responsible for this.

"What the hell is this? Get her down!"

"I'm making an example of her."

Pike's response was so calm, so certain, said in such authoritative way. He said it like he was so sure in what he was doing that nothing or no one could convince him otherwise. Bellamy's mouth hung open for a moment, finally seeing the absolute insanity of Pike's actions. Abby's screams echoed in his ears as Bellamy held up the rifle around his neck and pointed it at Pike.

"Get. Her. Down."

"What do you think you're doing?"

"This is too far, Pike! You can't just execute her!"

"I can, and I will. She's a traitor to our people, don't you understand that? She chose them over us. That's unforgivable."

"I won't let you do this."

Clarke saw the guard with the gun before Bellamy did. But before she could warn him, a gunshot rang through the clearing. She screamed. Bellamy's right shoulder spasmed to the side, evidence of the location of the bullet, and he dropped his rifle. Two guards caught him and pressed him to the ground. A third guard pressed his gun into Bellamy's back.

"Hang him."

At Pike's command, 48 teenage delinquents cried out. They pushed through the crowd, shouting and yelling their resentment towards the treatment of their King. Unfortunately, there were more adults with guns than there were teenagers. They took the rifle from Miller, who had let out the delinquents who were locked up when they had a problem with Clarke's hanging.

The guards created a circle, pointing their guns at the crowd and keeping them out as they brought Bellamy up to the box. One of them threw a rope over the tree branch and tied it into a noose before securing it around Bellamy's head. They slapped him to make sure he was just conscious enough to stand.

Abby screamed expletives and obscenities at Pike as Clarke tried to get Bellamy's attention, each second without speaking to him a second closer to their deaths.

"Bellamy . . . please . . ."

His eyes finally opened to look at her, sad, filled with regret . . . and the purest brown Clarke had ever seen. That was what she wanted to remember. Not the guilt in his gaze, but the colour, and the way he used to use them to look at her. She used to be able to read him so well, as he did her. She remembered catching his stolen glances at her, and him catching her own.

"I was wrong."

Bellamy wished his words were louder than a whisper. But he could tell Clarke caught them regardless by the way her face broke into a smile. She actually laughed, and he wanted to replay the sound a thousand times.

"I never thought I would hear you say that."

If these were going to be their last moments, she wanted to mark it with some of their long-missed banter. If these were going to be their last moments, Clarke wanted things to be normal between them again. Bellamy smiled back at her, the only comfort he could give her at this time.

"First time for everything, right?"

"First time for dying."

"I have to say, I'm not exactly looking forward to that."

Clarke could tell from the way Bellamy's eyes trailed from hers for a moment to look behind her, and from the way his smile became strained that they didn't have much time. Her bottom lip trembled.

"I'll see you on the other side."

Bellamy's heart clenched painfully at her words. He thought about what was to come. He was never one to believe in God, but maybe it wasn't too late to start. He wondered if Clarke believed in God. He wondered if he really would see her on the other side. He decided he didn't want to take chances.

"Clarke, I love - "

Two sickening snaps and a chorus of cries were all that could be heard as the box under Clarke and Bellamy's feet was pulled away.

**Strange things did happen here**

**No stranger would it be**

**If we met at midnight**

**In the hanging tree.**

**Author's Note:**

> And Pike died a horrible death at the hands of 48 teenage delinquents. Kane was re-elected Chancellor and made things good with Lexa and the Grounders again. Bellamy and Clarke were immortalized in a cool-looking statue with the words "Leaders of the 100". Their story is passed down forever and ever.
> 
> But the important part is that Pike dies a horrible death.
> 
> I apologise for any pain and/or feels I have caused because of this story.


End file.
